Guild Wars 2

I have a lot of success with a condition, toughness build. I win 90% or so 1v1 can contest a node against 2 indefinitely and can usually stall then escape against a large zerg. I rarely die unless its 4v1 or something and I’m too stunned to run.
This is an attrition spec so you win a fight over time not jump out of the woods and drop someone. A good ranged attacker is the only thing I really struggle with and bunker guardians can end up a stalemate.

Gear: I use S/D (smoldering/bleeding) with Undead Runes and Carrion Amulet.
You’ll have over 2.5k armor and 1.5k condition damage.
Spec:
Fire 10 (ember’s might)
Air 0
Earth 30 (earth’s embrace, salt stone and written in stone)
Water 20 (cleansing wave and cantrip mastery)
Arcane 10 (elemental attunement)
Signet of Restoration, Signet of Earth Cleansing Flame and Mist Form – Elemental Elite of course

With written in stone signet passives are always up so heal often and stun often, especially to set up a dragon’s tooth or churning earth. With cantrip mastery cleansing flame and mist form are up sooner so feel free to use them early in fights as well.

Burns and bleeds will wear down the target but use all your abilities.

Your knockdowns and and blinds lower the damage taken plus keeping rock barrier up and all the toughness you have you can take some hits. Plenty of healing and condition removal from water and phoenix.

This is my S/D PvP build. It focuses on condition and toughness and you win fights by attrition. The link has more details.

It works well for me in tPvP and sPvP.

[URL=http://en.gw2codex.com/build/19639]
[IMG]http://en.gw2codex.com/build/19639/sign[/IMG][/URL]

Downed eles, enough time to get a couple /dance moves before the face-flag.

I used to really struggle against the Thief but as I got better with my Elementalist I don’t fear them like I used too. Playing defensively though the start of the fight is key! I almost always dodge before I even attack. When I go to attack (I’m D/D btw) I’m less aggressive than I would be against a Mesmer or a Ranger. Well timed evasive skills, dodging and creating gaps while letting their initiative run out and you conditions weaken them. Somewhere around 5 to 10 seconds into the fight I got all out on them. If the take off running and RtL or Mag Grasp are on CD I’ll just let them go and heal up in case they come back.
I pretty much on D/D in s/tPvP and it took me some time to really adjust to the style. Being melee your instinct is to always hump the target and unload the burst. This is a good tactic against ranged but when fighting another melee we need to be more defensive. I feel we are the squishiest of melee builds (I’m not suggesting that’s a fact just my opinion) so dodging, having escape/cleansing utilities and traiting for at least some survivability is important.

Doesn’t 1 put up vulnerability stacks? Not suggesting this offsets the poor #2 but you said’ “The elementalist ability does nothing but pure damage, and it does it worse than the warrior’s 1 ability which also does pure damage.”

I completely agree we are a free stomp outside of a zerg vs zerg death but the AOE while down will probably get you in the 6sec til #3 is up.

Maybe if #2 sunk you into the ground for a second or just simply a knockdown at the start of the cast.

Seeing as this is one of the complaints even the other classes sympathize with I am sure ANet will pay it some attention… eventually.